Romney praises the tea party movement in a Florida op-ed

After earlier suggestions that he was keeping tea party activists at arms length, Mitt Romney offers a direct appeal to the movement today, praising the tea party in an op-ed published in the Orlando Sentinel.

In a column lambasting President Obama's debt proposal, the former Massachusetts governor credits the tea party for stoking GOP efforts to crackdown on federal spending.

"For the first time in the post-World War II era, there is a significant popular movement to scale back government and reduce the tax burden that has been stifling our economy. A lot of this is because members of the tea party are making their voices heard," Romney writes. "Thanks to the tea party, there's real hope that we can rein in our profligate federal government."

But in order to make progress, Romney writes, the nation has to "first rein in" Obama's "spending binge."

The column is notable in that it offers two major hints about the strategy Romney is planning for a full-fledged 2012 campaign.

For one, the ex-governor, in spite of his lack of public outreach to tea party types to date, is likely to embrace the movement as he builds his campaign almost exclusively around the economy.

Secondly, Romney published the op-ed in Florida, which is likely to be a key state in his path to winning the GOP nomination. Already, there have been hints he'll skip Iowa, a state where he didn't perform well in 2008, in favor of focusing heavily on New Hampshire--where he held a more than 30 point lead in one recent poll.

The question is where Romney will compete after that. South Carolina, a state where a large bloc of voters tend to cast ballots based on social issues, could be iffy territory for Romney, especially if Huckabee chooses to run again.

Instead, the ex-governor might choose to focus on states where his budget message will sell--including Nevada and Florida, two states hit hard by the nation's dismal economy.

Romney's Sentinel op-ed comes ahead of his first public appearance since announcing Monday he'd filed an "exploratory committee" for his long-expected 2012 bid. Today, he's doing a meet and greet with taxpayers outside an H&R Block branch in Orlando.

(Photo of Romney: Julie Jacobson/AP)